Dopamine Beans: Boost Your Mood By Growing These All-Natural Anti-Depressants

What if a vital anti-depressant could be grown right there in your own garden? It’s an interesting idea, so I spoke to a scientist at the cutting edge of research at Cambridge University who believes that the humble broad (or fava) bean holds the key to better mental health.

Let’s first take a look at how to grow broad beans, then discover how this beautiful bean boosts dopamine, and – just as importantly! – look at some tempting ways to eat more of them.

How to Sow Broad Beans

Broad beans are one of the hardiest beans out there, so even in cooler climates this is a great crop to start in autumn to sit through winter and get one of the earliest harvests from late spring.

There are a couple of ways to get this beany bounty started: direct sowing in the ground, or sowing into plug trays.

Sowing Broad Beans Direct

If you’ve got well-drained soil and winters that aren’t too harsh – say, with temperatures that don’t drop below about 15ºF (-10ºC) – then you can sow broad beans direct into the soil where they’re going to grow. Top up the soil first with a mulch of garden compost to a depth of about an inch (2-3 cm) deep. They don’t need any additional fertiliser as they’ll fix their own nitrogen by teaming up with special bacteria through their roots. Clever stuff!

Pop the seeds in about 2in (5 cm) deep, and around 8in (20 cm) apart in each direction. It feels so satisfying tucking the beautiful, chunky beans into the soil. It really puts a smile on my face!

Normally we want our seedlings to grow fast, but with broad beans, slower is better. In an ideal world we want short, stubby sprouts to sit through the winter, as they will better withstand cold snaps. Then – boom! – in spring they’ll race away. Taller, softer growth is more susceptible to very cold snaps, so if they do get a bit further ahead than you’d like, be on hand to throw row covers over them to guard against the worst of the cold.

Sowing Broad Beans Under Protection

If your ground is heavy clay, or your winters are particularly cold and wet, it may be safer to start your beans off in plug trays or small pots. I like using deep plug trays or root trainers. Broad beans put out long roots very quickly, so the extra depth really helps. For a cost-free option, you could also try sowing into toilet roll tubes. Just pack the tubes into a tray to keep them upright. Fill the tubes with multi-purpose potting mix, push the plump seeds in a couple of inches deep, and then cover them over and water.

Trays of bean seedlings will need to be kept in a cold frame, unheated greenhouse, or even just a sheltered spot outside. Then in spring, you’ll have sturdy little plants ready to plant into the ground at the same spacing as our direct-sown beans – 8in (20 cm) apart in both directions.

If you’re gardening in a really cold climate – where the ground freezes for weeks on end – I’d suggest skipping autumn sowing altogether, toasting your chilly feet against the fire, and waiting till early spring to sow. Your beans will still grow perfectly well, and they’ll only be a few weeks behind autumn sown beans.

My garden hovers somewhere on the cusp of mild and cold, so I sow some beans outside and others in the greenhouse. That way, if my outdoor-sown beans do get clobbered by a cold snap, I’ve got my protected beans as backup. And if they fail – and it’s happened before – no bother, I’ll just sow again in early spring!

The Science Behind Mood-Boosting Broad Beans

I went to the student allotments at King’s College, Cambridge University to meet Dr Nadia Radzman, a scientist who’s devoting her life to researching and promoting these truly awesome beans with the Broad'n Mind project. She explained to me that, while the broad bean is famous for fixing nitrogen in the soil, it has another claim to being an essential crop to grow. “Uniquely it has this compound called L-DOPA, which is a precursor to dopamine (the brain’s ‘feel-good’ chemical),” she said. “If we consume it, it can improve our mental health.

"There are six types of depression, and one of the types is due to inflammation of the frontal lobe of the brain. And just by consuming L-DOPA as a drug, it can actually eliminate it. From there, we can also allude that if we consume food that is high in L-DOPA then this can also help with mental health issues too.”

Dr Radzman shared a couple of recipes with me to make sure I got my dopamine hit “Roasted broad beans with olive oil and a little bit cumin are a high protein snack that you can make at home. They’ll keep you fuller for longer than crisps.” Or try them “blanched in boiling water for a few minutes and then just blitzed with olive oil, garlic and coriander. It can be used as an alternative to avocado spread on your toast in the mornings.”

I tried both and, I have to say, they did make me feel happy – so delicious! So let’s get on with growing those nutritious, mood-boosting beans!

Growing Broad Beans

Once your beans have sprouted they really don’t need much fussing over. Keep them weed-free and, if you’ve sown into plug trays or pots, just plant them out as soon as the soil starts to warm a little in early spring.

Broad beans grow into upright, bushy plants quite quickly once the weather warms up, so we need to give them a bit of support as they get taller. I like to run a couple of strings between canes to stop them flopping flat in strong winds.

There are also dwarf varieties of beans that won’t grow much taller than knee height – perfect for more exposed gardens and ideal for container-growing too.

Beans of all types are loved by black bean aphids, but one trick with broad beans is to just pinch out the very tops of the plants once the first pods have set. This will not only discourage the aphids, which love that soft, supple growth at the top of plants, but it’ll also redirect more of the plants’ energy into forming and swelling those beautiful, dopamine-promoting beans. Don’t waste the shoots though – they’re edible, and are delicious lightly steamed or even tossed into a salad.

Harvesting and Using Broad Beans

By early summer the pods will start to swell, and that’s your cue to start picking. You can harvest them young and tender, when the beans inside are still small and sweet, or leave them a little longer to get big, chunky beans with that classic earthy flavour.

As Dr Radzman explained earlier, they’re fantastic turned into all manner of snacks and dishes – good for body, definitely mind, and almost certainly soul! Or if you’ve got lots to spare, you can always freeze the extras – they freeze really well, either raw or blanched.

Let me know in the comments whether you’ll be growing these bountiful beans and what plans you have for them in the kitchen. In the meantime, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to try out our Garden Planner ahead of the next growing season – set yourself up for your best garden yet! Our 7 day trial is completely free, and you won’t even have to share any payment details to give it a go.

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